‘The prices for tours offered to foreign visitors who’d like to visit Yekaterinburg in April and May 2009 haven’t been even determined yet, even though our partners abroad keep asking for the price list. No European firm would ever sell a tour without a certain price, so this leads to our losing a lot of customers from Germany,’ Sputnik Yekaterinburg International Travel Agency’s Regional Travel Director Alla Galaktionova said to an UrBC reporter.

‘As far as this year is concerned, it was Germany that the lion’s share of foreign travelers arrived from in Yekaterinburg in January-September 2008, that is, about 5,000 people. 1,629, 1,298, and 924 people came from Spain, the United States, and France, respectively,’ says Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev’s press officer Ilona Starodubtseva.

‘According to the Federal Migration Service’s data, 222,000 foreigners arrived in Yekaterinburg altogether, of whom 96,166 people came by private invitations, 12,212 visitors came on business trips, 2,933 people were going to study here, and 98,226 people intended to work,’ Ilona Starodubtseva explained.